Cicero Scepticus: A Study of the Influence of the Academica in the Renaissance.

First Edition. xiii, 1 leaf, 214 pp. Original cloth. Very Good, without dust jacket. Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Idees/International Archives of the History of Ideas 52. 'Ancient skepticism was more influential in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than it had ever been before. Thanks to the groundwork of Charles B. Schmitt and Richard H. Popkin on the influence of ancient skepticism in early modern philosophy and to the extensive research that followed their lead, skepticism is now recognized as having played a major role in the rise of modern thought. There were two ancient skeptical schools, Academic skepticism and Pyrrhonism. Were both equally influential? Until the sixteenth century, Pyrrhonism was scarcely known. Only a few copies of Sextus's books (the only surviving primary source of ancient Pyrrhonism) have been discovered in medieval libraries. By contrast the main source of Academic skepticism, Cicero's Aca-demica, was occasionally referred to by medieval authors and was the object of some commentaries and criticism in the Renaissance. Academic skepticism was preserved from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance not only through Cicero's Academica, but also through Lactantius's Divinae Institutiones and Augustine's Contra Academicos. This situation changed when Sextus's works were translated to latin and published in 1562 and 1569. Sextus presents a much more complete and detailed account and defense of ancient skepticism than that of Cicero's Academica. Sextus presents Pyrrhonism as a coherent form of skepticism and Academic skepticism as a kind of negative dogmatism. It was thus natural that the ancient skepticism that fascinated some (and troubled so many) early modern thinkers was mostly Pyrrhonian. Because of the publication of Sextus's works, according to Schmitt, the increasing influence of Cicero's Academica in the Renaissance was halted' (Maia Neto, Jose Raimundo, 'Academic Skepticism in Early Modern Philosophy', Journal of the History of Ideas - Volume 58, Number 2, April 1997, pp. 199-220).…